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The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
- Author
- Michael Ondaatje
- Narrator
- Nathan Osgood
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 6 March 2025
- Run Time
- 2 hours 27 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Biographical fiction / autobiographical fiction, Adventure fiction: Westerns, Fiction based on or inspired by true events, Historical crime and mysteries, Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Poetry / poems by individual poets, Modern and contemporary poetry / poems, Historical fiction
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
Booker prize winning author Michael Ondaatje invites you on a brutal, beautiful journey into the American West. . .
At twenty-one years old, Billy the Kid has killed a man for each year he’s been alive.
Roaming the blasted planes of the Wild West, he moves between friends, foes and lovers, fighting to keep just one step ahead of the law. Yet in this twisted wasteland – a country of mad dogs, of sweat and gore and blinding heat – the sheriffs play dirty too.
Melding prose, poetry, imagined interviews and ephemeral photography, Ondaatje weaves together a lyrical reinterpretation of Billy’s short, infamous existence, forming a portrait of a young man, and a young country, borne out of violence, threaded through with disaster, yet rich in wonder.
‘Ondaatje’s language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets. This is literature, art.’ Annie Dillard
'Ondaatje’s eye for detail is wonderful and he uses it poetically, with superb restraint' Larry McMurtry
© Michael Ondaatje 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Critics Review
-
At once violent and sensuous, calloused and tender
Granta
-
Moving and tragic. . . . Ondaatje is a poet and even his prose moves with rhythmic circular precision
The New York Times Book Review
-
Ondaatje’s eye for detail is wonderful and he uses it poetically, with superb restraint
Larry McMurtry
-
Wonderful.... Ondaatje’s language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets. This is literature, art.
Annie Dillard
User Reviews
No reviews yet.
Details
- Author
- Michael Ondaatje
- Narrator
- Nathan Osgood
- Duration
- 2 hours 27 minutes
- Release Date
- 6 March 2025
- ISBN
- 9781529942408
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Biographical fiction / autobiographical fiction, Adventure fiction: Westerns, Fiction based on or inspired by true events, Historical crime and mysteries, Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Poetry / poems by individual poets, Modern and contemporary poetry / poems, Historical fiction
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.Booker prize winning author Michael Ondaatje invites you on a brutal, beautiful journey into the American West. . .At twenty-one years old, Billy the Kid has killed a man for each year he’s been alive.Roaming the blasted planes of the Wild West, he moves between friends, foes and lovers, fighting to keep just one step ahead of the law. Yet in this twisted wasteland – a country of mad dogs, of sweat and gore and blinding heat – the sheriffs play dirty too.Melding prose, poetry, imagined interviews and ephemeral photography, Ondaatje weaves together a lyrical reinterpretation of Billy’s short, infamous existence, forming a portrait of a young man, and a young country, borne out of violence, threaded through with disaster, yet rich in wonder.‘Ondaatje’s language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets. This is literature, art.’ Annie Dillard'Ondaatje’s eye for detail is wonderful and he uses it poetically, with superb restraint' Larry McMurtry© Michael Ondaatje 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
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